Investigation of in vitro micropropagation properties of some lavender (Lavandula spp.) varieties with high commercial importance

Lavender, a member of the Lamiaceae family, is an important aromatic and medicinal plant because of increasing economic value in the world. Inthisstudy, it was a imed to develop an in vitro micropropagation protocol for 4 different lavender varieties (Lavandula x intermedia var. Super A, Lavandula angustifolia var. Druzhba, Lavandula angustifolia f. Sevtopolis and Lavandula angustifolia var. Yubileina). Buds from newly developed shoots were cultured as an explant source. Toiden tify the best cytokines (BA, TDZ, 2-İP, and Kinetin) concentrations that provide optimum micropropagation rate and the culture medium suitable for stabilization and sustainability of cultures, explants were cultured on NRM, MS, and WPM containing 0.5, 1.0, or 1.5 mg/L (BA, TDZ,2-IP, Kinetin) + 0.01 mg/L Indole-3-Butyric Acid (IBA) + 30 g/L sucrose. Cultures were grown in a growt hroom at 23 ± 2 °C temperature and 16/8 h (light/dark) photoperiod. In addition, the effects of activated charcoal application on stabilization and sustainability of cultures have been investigated. A mean number of shoot sprecultured explant and mean shoot length were analyzed. The effect of the environment and the variety in terms of the number of shoots was found important. The numbers of shoots per explant were recorded on NRM medium with an average of (6.33 shoot/explant) considering all varieties. The high est shoot number (7,27 shoot/explant) was obtained on NRM containing BA with Super A variety in terms of shoot number, the best result from 4 different hormones were obtained from BA hormone. Interms of the average length of the shoots, NRM media gave better results than MS and WPM media. The best shoot length with 3.37 cm was obtained in the Super A variety containing TDZ medium. Although Active Charcoal application had a negative effect on the average number of shoots per explant in Lavender varieties, it had a positive effect on shoot length (3.57 cm). Micro shoots were transferred to external conditions after rooting in NRM medium containing 1 mg/L IBA.